Pages

Friday, May 30, 2014

Gone are the days of limited tools for students to demonstrate understanding. Today we have an infinite pallet of ways to support students in displaying their application of a concept or skill.

A growing trend in classrooms is the ability for students to create and author their own content... many times in the form of a book. What better way to reinvent student performance tasks than with a tool that allows publishing and sharing!

ASL 3:

Little Kitten Visits the Zoo

Inspired by a collaborative book project designed by HCMS Ed Tech Tanna Fiske involving vertical alignment and collaboration between 8th grade and 3rd grade History classes, Barbra Vinson's ASL (American Sign Language) class scripted an original children's story for TSD (Texas School for the Deaf). Once the story was composed, descriptions for all of the illustrations needed for the book were sent to Carilynne Gay's 1st grade class at TSD. Upon receiving the completed illustrations, the HS ASL class eagerly incorporated them in to their book and added their video interpretations... each student signing different portions of the text in the book. The entire project was compiled using the Book Creator app for iPad.

Original Text by ASL 3 and Original Art Work by TSD students

The ePub version is available for download here and will open in iBooks. The final product has been screen recorded over using Quicktime and been given an audio track for those that would like to peruse the book without downloading it.

The Princess and the Pea

Students also had an opportunity to sign a classic fairy tale. In the interest of time, they did not include it in book format. However, the final video, to be included in the book with the original text, is shared below. The multi-layered process involved signing the tale in front of a green screen using the iPad camera, creating animations using the Puppet Pals app, and combining both of the videos using Doink's Green Screen app.

The final product has given an audio track (using copyright-free music from the YouTube audio library) for those that would like to enjoy a little whimsical music to accompany this tale.

Chinese III:

As a final project in Lichy Chang's Chinese III class students translated original and classic children's stories using the Book Creator app.

Chinese Carrot: This student used the Chinese keyboard on the iPad, included original images, and recorded themselves narrating using two whimsical vegetables. ePub can be downloaded here.

Three Little Pigs: This student used the Chinese keyboard on the iPad, photos from the internet, and a combination of audio narration and stop-motion animation to create this translation of the Three Little Pigs. ePub can be downloaded here.

Chinese Class: This student used the Chinese keyboard on the iPad, included images they found on the internet, and then recorded themselves acting out the text using puppets in Chinese. ePub can be downloaded here.

Chinese II:

Lichy's Chinese II class engaged in a similar final project where they chose a topic or set of common phrases to translate and prepared short vignettes to accompany them in Book Creator. ePub can be downloaded here.

Stay tuned for info about future updates to this project. As we progress into our fourth year, we will also continue to reflect upon the changes to classroom, pedagogy, and instruction throughout our 1:1 iPad implementation.